System and Method for Storing Streaming Media File

• US 20100241757A1
• Filed: 10/20/2008
• Published: 09/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xunlei Networking Technologies, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Xunlei Networking Technologies, Ltd.
• Inventors: Luo, Haijiang, Yang, Xianfeng, Hu, Maowei
• Granted Patent: US 8,880,650 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/612 for unicast
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2181 comprising remotely distributed storage units, e.g. when movies are replicated over a plurality of video servers distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/222 Secondary servers, e.g. proxy server, cable television Head-end provisioning of proxy services in data packet switching networks H04L67/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23109 by placing content in organized collections, e.g. EPG data repository details of retrieval of video data and associated meta data in video databases G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments

Abstract

A system and method for storing a streaming media file for improving the performance of a streaming media server and fully utilizing the space of a storage are provided. The system includes: a segmenting and distributing server, adapted to segment the streaming media file into at least two segment files, determine a number of the streaming media servers for storing each segment file, distribute each of the at least two segment files to corresponding streaming media servers according to the determined number of the streaming media servers, and transmit the related information of each of the at least two segment files to a resource index server; at least two streaming media servers, adapted to receive and store the segment file; and the resource index server, adapted to receive the related information and establish an index in respect of each segment file and its related information.

Claims

1. A system for storing a streaming media file, comprising:

a segmenting and distributing server, a resource index server and at least two streaming media servers;

the segmenting and distributing server is adapted to segment the streaming media file into at least two segment files, determine a number of the streaming media servers for storing each segment file, distribute each of the at least two segment files to corresponding streaming media servers according to the determined number of the streaming media servers, and transmit the related information of each of the at least two segment files to the resource index server;

the streaming media server is adapted to receive and store the segment file; and

the resource index server is adapted to receive the related information and establish an index in respect of each segment file and its related information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein, the related information of each of the at least two segment files comprises:

an identification of the segment file, an identification of the streaming media file corresponding to the segment file, an offset address of the segment file within the corresponding streaming media file, the length of the segment file and the addresses of all the streaming media servers storing the segment file.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein, the identification is obtained by calculating the data of the corresponding file using a preset algorithm.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein, the segmenting and distributing server determines that the number of the streaming media servers for storing a segment file with a high access frequency is larger than the number of the streaming media servers for storing a segment file with a low access frequency.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein, the segment file with a high access frequency is a segment file in the beginning and/or ending part of the streaming media file, the segment file with a low access frequency is a segment file in the middle part of the streaming media file.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein, the segmenting and distributing server distributes a beginning segment file of the streaming media file to all the streaming media servers.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein, the segmenting and distributing server distributes each of the at least two segment files to at least two streaming media servers.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a streaming media client, adapted to determine the streaming media servers storing a target segment file by querying the index, download the target segment file from the determined streaming media servers and play the downloaded target segment file.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein, the segmenting and distributing server segments the streaming media file into at least two segment files according to size of the streaming media file or a boundary of frames of the streaming media file.

10. A method for storing a streaming media file, comprising:

segmenting the streaming media file into at least two segment files, and determining a number of streaming media servers for storing each segment file;

distributing and storing each of the at least two segment files to corresponding streaming media servers according to the determined number of the streaming media servers; and

establishing an index in respect of each segment file and its related information.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein, the related information of each segment file comprises:

an identification of the segment file, an identification of the streaming media file corresponding to the segment file, an offset address of the segment file within the corresponding streaming media file, the length of the segment file and the addresses of all the streaming media servers storing the segment file.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein, the identification is obtained by calculating the data of the corresponding file using a preset algorithm.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein, the number of the streaming media servers for storing a segment file with a high access frequency is larger than the number of the streaming media servers for storing a segment file with a low access frequency.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein, the segment file with a high access frequency is a segment file in the beginning and/or ending part of the streaming media file, the segment file with a low access frequency is a segment file in the middle part of the streaming media file.

15. The method of claim 10, comprising distributing a beginning segment file of the streaming media file to all the streaming media servers.

16. The method of claim 10, comprising distributing each of the at least two segment files to at least two streaming media servers.

17. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

determining the streaming media servers storing a target segment file by querying the index, downloading the target segment file from the determined streaming media servers and playing the target segment file.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein segmenting the streaming media file into at least two segment files comprises:

segmenting the streaming media file into at least two segment files according to size of the streaming media file or a boundary of frames of the streaming media file.